Playboy Gunter Sachs kills himself aged 78

Gunter Sachs – the German-born billionaire, art collector and former husband of Brigitte Bardot – has killed himself at the age of 78. He shot himself at his chalet in the Swiss resort of Gstaad on Saturday.

A grandson of car manufacturer Adam Opel, Sachs’s wealth helped him to become him a prominent member of the glamorous 1960s “jet set”.

Sachs and Bardot married in Las Vegas in 1966, a few weeks after they first met. The marriage lasted just over three years. Hours after meeting her, Sachs arranged for a helicopter to fly over her house in southern France and drop hundreds of red roses.

“It’s not every day that a man drops a tonne of roses in your yard,” the actress later wrote.

Graham Spicer

Writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name 'Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like.

I was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. My scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times. I write the 'Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times.